Nephilim Character Creation – Quick Checkpoint

Note: I am slowly converting Nephilim, an old Chaosium game, over to Dresden Files FATE. I am just flopping all the posts on my blog because I can tag and collect them all later. This stuff is in no particular order. You can buy Nephilim in PDF from DriveThruRPG for ~$17. You should also buy Dresden Files RPG.

So far I’ve covered some very basics of Nephilim character creation by changing Incarnations into packages of Aspects, assigning a Stasis, changing the Nephilim Metamorphosis, and giving them Khaiba to prod them along. Yet they are still missing skills, wound meters, stunts, a good way to pick an Arcanum, and the crucial bit: magic. What good is a Nephilim who cannot summon the Things that Creep and Nibble to consume their neighbor’s car in a fit of pique? Or cannot walk through the Mall randomly casting Spleen on unsuspecting people? And where are the Templars? Yet, still, there are no Templars!

To show where the conversion is so far, I’ll give Elijah the Serpent Moon Nephilim a few Incarnations and some Aspects to get him off the ground, so to speak. This will change a bit as the rules get more fleshed out.

Character: Elijah the Serpent Moon Nephilim

Current Simulacrum: Matthew Bohm, Homeless Man

Stasis: Middle Kingdom Scarab with the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony written on one side.

First Metamorphosis: Deceitful, eyes turn to serpent when deceiving another person

First Incarnation: Religious Artist in Thebes 1350 BC

Aspects: Joined the Wheel of Fortune Arcana, Mystic Astrologer

Second Incarnation: Jewish Scholar, Judea 30 AD

Aspects: Witnessed the Fool, Initiate of Sorcery

Third Incarnation: High Noble Lord, Aachen 830

Aspects: Merovingian, Murdered by Paladins (omg)

Fourth Incarnation: Alchemist, London 1590

Aspects: Indulgent (everyone also imbibes around the Serpent), Kabbalistic Alchemy

Elijah has had several full incarnations. He has a stasis. He has mastered two of his five Metamorphsis states, joined the Wheel of Fortune, and dug into Sorcery and Alchemy. He was there at the Incarnation of the Fool. He was murdered by Charlemagne’s thuggish Paladin Nephilim hunters and has a sworn enemy — surely some secret society is a descendant of them out there, somewhere. And he has incarnated into the body of a homeless man in New York City, a homeless man who, before he went mad, was a physics professor at a respected university. Perhaps he can tap into his Simulacrum to push forward an agenda of magic and vengeance. Meanwhile, the Thule Brunderschaft hunts any Nephilim alive during the era of the Merovingian Fisher Kings as they are the ticket to retrieving the Holy Grail and the Thule, still dreaming of world conquest, see it as their ticket to a new Reich….

Naturally, the next steps to building a complete character are skills and the skill Pyramid. Then some insight into the Arcana before digging seriously into FATE Refresh and magic.